The progressive blogosphere is sounding the alarm about a Virginia state bill that requires women to have an ultrasound before receiving an abortion, likening the mandatory procedure to a bodily violation akin to rape.

The bill, which could pass the legislature this week and which Gov. Bob McDonnell is ready to sign, was defended strenuously by anti-abortion advocates over the weekend.

Several bloggers wrote that a forced sonogram could be compared to a sex assault.

“Under the new legislation, women who want an abortion will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. Where’s the outrage? … I am not the first person to note that under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law,” wrote Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick.

Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel call the measure “a particularly ugly bit of legislation that would require women seeking a first-trimester abortion in the state to undergo a vaginal ultrasound for no medical reason.”

“Many women are upset because by most definitions, forcing a woman to have something put inside her vagina against her will and for no reason is, uh, rape,” Ryan wrote.

Not all of the bloggers commenting on the measure equated the procedure with rape, but most who objected did suggest that, at the very least, the mandatory requirement was punitive for those who decided to get an abortion.

“Research shows that women don’t change their minds after viewing an ultrasound, but go ahead with the abortion anyway… It’s the modern day version of putting someone in the stocks, shaming someone as punishment,” wrote Amanda Marcotte at AlterNet.

A handful of states have enacted similar measures.

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers’ main responses were to say that the requirement wasn’t comparable to rape because abortion is a choice, and that the liberal outrage was overblown.

“[T]he law does not demand any particular type of sonogram,” said Jimmie Bise at The Sundries Shack, referring to the bill.

Indeed, those on the right argued that abortion was by choice, and thus the law was not as coercive as its critics made it out to be.

“How is this law ‘like rape’ when abortion is voluntary whereas rape obviously is not? How is a ‘vaginal probe’ ultrasound ‘like rape’ when you have the option not to have the ‘vaginal probe’ done?!” wrote SisterToldjah.

“This is not how rapists, in general, operate. It’s crackpottery on the level of saying that it’s assault to require you to consent to a chest incision before you can have open heart surgery. Doctors perform invasive diagnostic tests before more serious procedures every day without being called rapists by Luddite lawyers,” wrote Streiff at RedState.

Further, conservative bloggers said that comparing the use of sonograms with rape was an insult to rape victims.

“To equate a medical procedure that carries no real risk of negative consequences — like emotional trauma or STDs — with rape, which does carry such consequences, does an enormous injustice to true rape victims,” wrote Tina Korbe at HotAir.